Genius G540 EPROM programmer: what’s inside and initial startup

Buying a G540 programmer

I have been collecting old EPROM chips for many years. Now I was curious what data these hold exactly. I am not looking for program data but more for character maps, hidden “Easter eggs” . Something like this Hack a day ((Hack a day on hidden photographs in old Mac ROM chips )) post.

So I went to ebay an bought one of this widespread available “Genius G540 ((G540 programmer on ebay))” EPROM programmers.

It came in a cardboard box and this were the contents

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Content of the Box: programmer, USB cable, QC card and a CD-R with the software on it
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The programmer: The built quality is surprisingly high. A flawless injection molded case and a good 3M-branded ZIF socket.
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Back of the programmer: Note the misspelled url

Of course I could not resist and opened the programmer.

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The PCB looks well build too
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back of the PCB
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detail of the PCB

 

Too bad I noticed the seal of warranty only after screwing the programmer back together.

Now to the software installation process.

I refrained from using the drivers from the CD-R and instead downloaded them from the stg51 website ((Driver & Software download page on the stg51 website))

The installation instruction is awful but it gets to the point and I had no problem installing the software. There were even (unsigned of course) x64 drivers for Windows.

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The installation guide. Awful English, even worse than my English ;-)

 

 Testing the programmer (reading an EPROM)

To test the programmer I picked an 512 kbit  EPROM from an Auerswald PBX.

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By clicking on select in the toolbar (3rd icon) this dialog shows up
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After confirming the chip by clicking “OK” this dialog with addition information is displayed telling you how to insert the chip
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I did as I was told…
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… and pressed the “read” button in the tool bar (4th from the right). The LED on the programmer started to blink and the progress bar showed the progress.
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After reading the EPROM the window is empty but the contents of the EPROM are in the program cache. So you need to press the “Save” button in the toolbar. I selected a binary format.
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Opening the binary file in Notepad2: looks good

 

 

 

 

21 thoughts on “Genius G540 EPROM programmer: what’s inside and initial startup”

  1. Hello friend.l have these g540 but you can’t type any chips numbers on it. Do you have any one can do that?

    1. @Joe Kimbriel
      The driver worked for my Win7 x64 computer but I’ve had the same problem when I tried to install the Programmer on an other computer. I haven’t figured out what’s the reason behind this.

        1. bummer! I have not used it with windows 10 yet. If I get to try it I will update my post.
          Thx for the feedback

  2. Did you try to burn this 27c512? The eprom needs 12v to enter in program mode so I dont know how it is working…. DC-DC Upstep?

  3. Hello,
    My Programmer wont be recognized by windows anymore, after normal use some days start ticking…
    it to be looks to be dead only Led is on but nothing else,

  4. Hi ,
    anyone got software for windows 7 ultimate 32 BIT? i tried to install original version G450 V 4.1 but cant connect to device. here my email >fauzi_intel@yahoo.com
    really need help. TQ

  5. After fighting with the drivers and everything else I finally got it to the point that it would attempt to read, but it now locks up while trying to read something as simple as an AMD 27C64 and I have to force close it, unplug and reconnect the programmer, and then reopen the software or it’ll lock up the software upon reopening, anyone know wtf to do? This is easily some of the worst software I’ve ever attempted to use and I’m really regretting buying this nugget

    1. Hi kastein,

      unfortunatly not.
      I was not able to get ir running on Windows 10 and gave up on the programmer. I go an TL866II Plus instead. That one is pretty nice and has software support for Windows and Linux.

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